It's no longer your mom's AI spaghetti.
In just under three years, AI video generation has progressed from struggling to depict Will Smith eating spaghetti to producing a lifelike video.
The unofficial benchmark test began in 2023 when a Reddit user posted a video of the Academy Award-winner eating spaghetti generated by ModelScope, a text-to-video AI model.
The initial results were horrifying. Will Smith looked nothing like his movie star self. Instead, he looked like a bad animation, complete with caricatured features that would be more at home on a tourist trap boardwalk. In some videos, he never actually consumed the spaghetti, failing to meet even the most basic premise of the test.
The failures highlighted the early limitations of AI-generated video and images, which sometimes produced people with 8 fingers or other anatomical imperfections.
Smith himself referenced the test in February 2024, posting a TikTok in which he ate spaghetti in almost as cartoonish a manner as the initial video.
@willsmith This is getting out of hand! #aivideo #sora
♬ original sound - Will Smith
A lot has changed since then.
In 2024, MiniMax, a Chinese AI model, made a much more accurate representation, but AI Smith's chewing was still off. And at the very end of the clip, the noodles appear to levitate.
Will Smith in Veo 3.1 pic.twitter.com/SuK9jky3NW
— ⚡AI Search⚡ (@aisearchio) October 15, 2025
In May 2025, a user posted on X that he used Google's Veo 3 to generate a new video. The problem with this one is that the noodles AI Smith is chewing sound way too crunchy. A later Veo 3.1-generated video looks even more realistic.
And in February 2026, a Redditor posted what may be the most realistic version yet. The user said they created the video with Seedance 2.0, the newest AI video-generation model from ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok.
The same month, two other Seedance 2.0-generated videos — one of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting and another featuring a deepfake of Breaking Bad's Walter White — went viral, prompting concern from entertainment industry leaders.
The Motion Picture Association, which represents major Hollywood studios and streaming services, released a statement on Thursday accusing ByteDance of copyright infringement.
"By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs. ByteDance should immediately cease its infringing activity," Charlie Rivkin, the chairman and CEO of the MPA, said in the statement.
In fall 2025, OpenAI's Sora established itself as one of the best AI video generators on the market. Soon after the launch of Sora 2 and its accompanying TikTok-esque mobile app in September, the company was forced to add more guardrails on third-party likeness and copyrights after a series of high-profile incidents involving SpongeBob and Martin Luther King Jr.
Google and Elon Musk's xAI are racing to keep up. In July, xAI launched Grok Imagine, its text-to-video generator.
Passing the spaghetti test might be tougher now, as Hollywood and other rights holders intensify their efforts to prevent AI companies from infringing on their rights. Just days before Sora 2's release, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., and other rights holders filed suit in federal court against MiniMax. Disney, however, did reach an agreement with OpenAI in December.
Meanwhile, in Washington, some lawmakers are appalled that AI can now generate videos of them speaking words that they never once uttered.
Not everyone is shying away from AI video. In late 2025, Coca-Cola said it once again used AI to help generate its holiday ad, this time drawing on Sora, Veo 3, and Luma AI.
